Ernest Hemingway And Existentialism

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Greg Wozniak
Humanities
Professor Fawell
24 April, 2014
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
Ernest Hemingway’s short story A Clean, Well-Lighted Place takes a very dark angle on life. The story emphasizes the meaningless of life and the depression that ensues when we age. Hemingway’s depressed view that life is meaningless is told through the dialogue and thoughts of an old man and waiters in Spain. Unfortunately, much of Hemingway’s real life relates to his short story. Hemingway struggled as he aged with severe depression and alcoholism. The old men in A Clean, Well-Lighted Place are very much aspects of Hemingway. As the old man had to deal with suicide so did Ernest. Ernest Hemingway committed suicide after losing his fight with depression and battling to find out what his life meant (Bio.com). Ernest Hemingway’s work A Clean Well-Lighted Place very much emphasized Hemingway’s views on life, while also being one of his best works. The characters are each at different stages in their life, but Hemingway underlines that our lives end inevitably with being depressed old men.
The major overlying theme of the short story is nothingness and Hemingway’s use of existentialism. A Clean, Well-Lighted Place emphasizes the idea of nothing and the meaningless of life through its characters (Stock). The deaf old man is struggling with aging. He has attempted suicide and drinks often. The young waiter said that the old man had attempted suicide because of “nothing” (Hemingway). Nothing is exactly what the old man has. The old man’s life at this point is meaningless. He has lost his wife and now is looked after by his niece who saved his life by cutting down the rope when he tried to hang himself (Hemingway). Hemingway uses the younger waiter to disp...

... middle of paper ...

...story could have been Hemingway if he were not married. But, Ernest’s wives, like the young waiter, helped him get rid his feeling of loneliness. Being alone is a major cause of depression and both of the older men had no wives to keep them company.
Ernest Hemingway’s A Clean, Well-Lighted Place takes on an incredibly depressing and unfortunate stance on life. According to Hemingway, the older we get the more we realize that life has no meaning. Religion does not grant anybody any solace when they reach the feeling of emptiness at the end of their life. People inevitably become alone and just wait for death. As well, the depression and despair the old men in this short story feel unfortunately can directly correlate to the life of Hemingway. He suffered from depression and ended up killing himself. Life as portrayed by Hemingway is a very cynical, but honest view.

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